The climate bill that was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month is getting wide support and attention. However, activist groups who have taken a closer look at the bill are wondering if it’s a climate bill addressing global climate change or a climate bill addressing the concerns of the coal and oil industry. Public Citizen, a national, non-profit, public interest organization, states that the bill “will prove a boon to the coal and oil industries, will fail to protect consumers and may very well not even curb global warming.”
Other activist organizations, such as the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and the NAACP support the bill but raise similar concerns and say that the public will suffer if certain aspects of the bill are not addressed.
Public Citizen states that the bill was “radically altered” after lobbyists from big energy corporations met with Representatives of the House behind closed doors, and that the result is a bill that gives away pollution allowances for nothing for the next two decades (a critical time in the struggle to keep the Earth from warming beyond limits). It says that the bill (as it is currently written) hurts the public and working families disproportionately. The organization says that the bill will “deprive the government of the money needed to invest in clean technologies and thwart the very goal of curbing global warming.”
Public Citizen is urging people to contact their representatives in the Senate and ensure that the bill returns back to how it was meant to be. To TAKE ACTION, click here.
For more on this struggle to have a fair and strong climate bill, click here.
Image credit: slworking2 via flickr under a Creative Commons license
